You can choose your friends,but you can not choose your relations.

How true is that! I look around at my dysfunction able family and I often wonder whether I chose them before I was born and if I did I must have had tonnes of bad karma to catch up with! My parents are unaffectionate, critical and have been outright abusive in the past. So yes I do wonder if I ever had any choice in the matter. I have been spending time with them out of obligation lately which is not how it should be and certainly not how it is with those I have chosen to be my friends.

i think ,that is not absolute, some times we cant choose our friends that much relative to circumstances .but ,we cant choose our relations.

I live far enough away from all relatives that I dont have to be close to the ones I dont really care about!

oh yea.my mom's got some beauties on her side i can't stand. but thankfully,i don't have to see them very often.

Yes I have one whom really I could do without and that is my Dad, terrible to say I know especially as without him I would not be here. But he is the most hurtful man I have come across when it comes to my family - never my sisters fsmily - always mine and always how he treats me as a 'little' girl by lecturing me whenever we talk, he never does with my sister...it would be really nice to know why he is like it but never will...LoLo

yep that about somes it up, we can't pick our family. so have to put up with with some weird family at times i know mine can be. i don't speak to many from the family.

YES!! I most certainly do! Especially some who are are all sugary sweet as Christmas is coming and they are hoping to get gifts yet they have not bother to contact me throughout the year!

I have been through this many times with friends and relatives. I wish I had never met some of them also. It is hard to trust people these days and it is very hard to rely on them when you need them also.

This is SO true! Fortunately, there aren't any of my family that I just cannot stand. We have fights and disagreements like all families do, but when someone needs us, we are there for each other. Of course we also tease each other mercilessly!

I'm with you all the way on that one jugsjugs! Purrs, Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

i'm not family orientated so it does'nt bother me that my family annoy me,coz i hardly see them

Yes the saying is true it is very hard to choose your relations but you can choose your friends. Most people do have some of the relations that they do not get along well with and probably wish they were not related.

My family is very close and for that reason I do consider my family to be my friends and I wouldn't want to get rid of any of them. They are the greatest gift that I have ever been given and many of them are people that I would not have chosen to be my friends in ordinary situations but because of the fact that we are family we've been thrown together in life and we've discovered a lot of things that we have in common. Therefore, I wouldn't trade my family for the world and I wouldn't wish that a single one of them was not related to me.

I only see my dad from my side of the family. The others I don't see and that was my choice - because it seemed I only saw then if I made the effort. No one has called me or knocked on the door to even see how I am. I've never been close to my sisters because of a large age gap and we just never did "close" in our family. I do regret losing touch with my one aunt and uncle who tried in many ways to make up for the lack of interest shown by my parents and syblings but other than that they can pretty much all go hang.

Well my husband and I were un-invited to Christmas on Dad's side of the family AFTER we had already paid for everyone's gifts, had them delivered here and wrapped, AND arranged for a town car to drive us down there. Sure no one would pick us up, but we had arranged an alternative. So we had to cancel the town car, but the gifts were already bought and paid for. Understandably we were pi$$ed right off that we were uninvited, BUT it made us think of the friends we do have, one in particular, a local bus driver. We decided that the best way to cheer ourselves up would be to buy him a present too! :) Hey, if we already spent a lot of money on people who don't appreciate us, why not invest $20 for a nice gift for him, and something we know he'll like? :)

jugjugs I hope you do not get mad at me but a lot of us have begun to wonder when you are going to stop making 25 discussions a day and give other people on myfriends list time to list their discussions too. why not respond to some of our discussions for awwhile first? and please try to be more upbeat. you sound so depressed all the time.

hi jugsjugs , you are right , you can select only your friends and not the relatives. i agree with you 100 %